Cold and Creamy Summer Coffee

With coffee shops on every corner, it’s incredibly tempting to grab a refreshing iced brew to suck the heat out of a hot summer day (while providing a quick pick-me-up). But coffee-drinker beware: that convenient iced concoction can squeeze up to 350 calories and 22 grams of fat in one little straw. For me, that’s a crazy waste of calories for a
drink. I’d rather have a scoop of ice cream or something I can actually
chew. And just because you’re
drinking calories doesn’t mean they don’t count – add them to your grand tally at the end of the day. Here’s the good news: making home-made iced coffee is just as simple as hitting the drive through window. Even better, YOU control the ingredients. When I make a pot of coffee in the morning, I make an extra cup or two and save it in the fridge for later (it’s already chilled when I’m ready for it). When I’m thirsty for coffee on ice, I add chocolate and caramel syrup and almond extract. My refreshingly sweet treat has great coffeehouse flavor with just 59 calories and zero grams of fat.
I realize everyone likes their coffee prepared differently, so use my recipe as a guide and blend any combination of flavors you want. For example, eliminate the caramel and you have chocolate-almond. Or, dodge the chocolate syrup and have caramel-almond. Swap vanilla extract for almond extract and enjoy chocolate-caramel-vanilla. Feel free to change the amounts too – more or less milk, chocolate, caramel and almond.

Chocolate-Almond Iced Coffee with Caramel

Note: I used nonfat dry milk powder to prevent watering down the coffee. You can also use regular nonfat milk.